Monday, December 23, 2013

'Leather' Book Marks--a Last Minute Christmas Gift!

First of all, I would like to wish you all a blessed Christmas!

What a joy to be able to spend a day focused on remembering that Jesus Christ--the Son of God--God Himself became a man so that He could be the ultimate sacrifice--the Savior of those whom God has called.

Amazing Grace!

We are starting our own family traditions this year in regard to Christmas Eve and such, and our main goal is to focus on Christ.

The gifts are but a small part and in keeping with that, I wanted to make them something that they could use, nothing extravagant, but that was also special.

And, if you know my family at all--we are book worms.

Almost all of us.

So, I thought it'd be fitting to whip together some neat book marks or 'mark-books' as the kids call them to bug me!
They'll go well with the books the kids are getting...

I took pictures along the way to give you an idea of what I did--a bit of a tutorial, I guess.
Don't mind the quality of the pictures--this was done in 'secret'--most taken in my 'no-natural' light laundry room, at night.

Next, I found a font I liked on Word--I can't remember exactly which one, but I only used it for the first letter. If you're artistic, you won't need to do this.

Copy the font onto your leather with chalk so you can rub it off if you need to fix mistakes...

Take your embroidery floss and I split it so that I had two threads in at a time.

Trace the chalk lettering with your stitches.

Cut out a piece of fabric and a piece of Wonder Under to fit each book mark.

Attach the Wonder Under to the leather. Remove the paper backing and iron onto the fabric. (Make sure you always have the leather on the bottom so you are not directly ironing the leather!)

This is what the front will look like:

This is what you'll have on the back:

Find some co-ordinating thread and thread your sewing machine with that. (I did different colors for the top and bobbin thread.)

Stitch 1/4" around all the edges.

And, this is what the front will look like:

And, the back:

﻿

And, you're done.

You can add other embellishments but remember that it has to go in a book--so nothing too thick.

Instead of hand-stitching the name on the front, you could applique something on there as well. Just make sure you remember that a hole made in the leather is not easily hidden and will weaken it, so the less holes, the better!

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